


Watcher To No Other

by draca (wyvernwolf)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-03
Updated: 2010-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernwolf/pseuds/draca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy was gone and everything just stopped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watcher To No Other

Buffy was gone and everything just stopped.

Giles stood there staring at her body, so still, so unlike what she was like in life, and he could feel his world shattering, the shards piercing his heart. Amid the rubble, the confusion in the aftermath of their fight and with the death of another human being still on his hands, he approached his Slayer's lifeless form hesitantly, unwilling to accept that his purpose in life was gone.

Her face is smudged and stained with blood and dirt and streaked with sweat, but she is still beautiful. Even in death her beauty touched him, broke through the mantle of reserve he'd adopted as a Watcher, _her _Watcher. Sinking to his knees next to her, he reached out and gently moved a strand of errant hair off her face, smoothing rough fingers across the rapidly cooling cheek. A tear made it's way down his cheek, quickly followed by a second and third, and uncaring he let them fall. It mattered not that anyone would see him cry. He would not deny her the tears, the acknowledgement of her sacrifice.

Giles was vaguely aware of the others gathering around him but he didn't react. He couldn't react. They were unimportant, secondary in his consideration. His world had narrowed down to the still body stretched out in front of him.

It's hard for him to understand why his heart is still beating, why he's still living and breathing, when his reason for living is dead.

But he is.

And he hurts.

Not physical pain. Not that. He can ignore that, pretend that he wasn't hurt in the fight. But he can't ignore the twisting in his stomach, the something heavy and painful that's settled in the vicinity of his heart. No, those he can't ignore, the insubstantial pain that is much more real and felt than the hit to the head, the cuts in his skin.

He wants to howl out his loss but he cannot. He has one last task left as her Watcher, to lay his Slayer to rest; and he swears silently to himself that he will see it through. With that task complete, then and only then would he tender his resignation to The Council and return to England. The Hellmouth and it's care was no longer his responsibility. That had ended when Buffy had died. He would not accept another Slayer no matter what blandishments they waved at him.

For he was ever hers. In life and death. Watcher to no other.

Carefully he gathered her close to him and stood. It was the start of his end.

-Fin-


End file.
